This is the fourteenth and final talk for Winter-Spring 1943. For some reason the typescript is undated. After this AAB took a summer break, then resumed a new season of talks in September.

AAB began this talk with a reading of the Tibetan�s words on the relation of the higher will, initiation and the �burning ground� (from a statement in the first of the Fourteen Rules for Group Initiation).
                                                                                                                      - SES

The secret of the higher initiations lies in the trained use of the higher will. It does not lie in purification or in self-discipline or in any of the expedients that have acted in the past as interceptors of the truth. This whole problem of the Shamballic will is in process of revelation, and will eventually alter the entire approach of the disciple in the New Age to initiation�.

For long, aspirants have noted and have been taught the effect of the will upon the astral or emotional body. It is one of the primary and most elementary of the initial tensions, and is taught upon the Probationary Path. It leads to the purifying and the reorganizing of the entire psychic and emotional life, as the result of its destructive action. �If you will only think,� �if you will only use a little will,� and �if you will only remember that you have a mind,� we say to the children of the race and to beginners upon the Path of conscious Return. Little by little, then, the focus and the orientation shift out of the astral life and from the emotional level of consciousness into the mental, and consequently into the reflection of the world of purpose found in the three worlds. When that stage has been somewhat developed, then there follows, upon the Path of Discipleship and of preparation for initiation, an effort to grasp and understand the higher aspects of this mental process, and the will aspect of the egoic life begins to influence the disciple. The �petals of sacrifice� unfold and the sacred sacrificial aspect of life is revealed in its beauty, purity, simplicity and in its revolutionizing quality.

Upon the Path of Initiation, the Monadic Will (of which the Egoic Will is the reflection and the individual self-will is the distortion) is gradually transmitted, via the Antahkarana, direct to the individual upon the physical plane. This produces the higher correspondence of those qualities so glibly spoken of by the well-trained but dense esotericist � transmutation and transformation. The result is the assimilation of the individual will and the Egoic Will into the purpose of the Monad, which is the purpose � undeviating and unalterable � of the One in Whom we live and move and have our being. This is the field of the true burning, for our �God is a consuming Fire.� This is the burning bush or the burning tree of life of Biblical symbolism. This highest of all the fires, this deeply spiritual and hitherto seldom recognized burning ground, has its effects summed up for us in the next phrase or sentence of Rule One.

The burning ground has done its work.

Here there is quite apt to be misunderstanding. To most people the burning ground stands for one of two things:

1.      Either the fire of the mind, burning up those things in the lower nature of which it becomes increasingly aware.

2.      Or the burning ground of sorrow, agony, horror and pain, which is the characteristic quality of life in the three worlds, particularly at this time.

But the burning ground referred to here is something very different. When the blazing light of the sun is correctly focused on or through a glass it can cause ignition. When the blazing light of the Monad is focused directly upon the personality, via the Antahkarana and not specifically through the Soul, it produces a blazing fire that burns up all hindrances in a steady, sequential process. Wording it otherwise, when the will aspect streams from the Monad and focuses through the personal will (as the mind can grasp and realize it) it destroys as by fire all elements of self-will. As the energy of Shamballa streams out and makes a direct contact with humanity (omitting the transmission via the Hierarchy, which has hitherto been customary), you have what has been seen in the world today, a destructive conflagration or a world burning ground. When the Antahkarana of a group is rightly constructed, then the individualized group-will will disappear in the full consciousness of the Monadic purpose or clear directed will. These are points that the disciple preparing for initiation has to consider as he prepares for the higher initiations, and these are the points that any group or ashram in preparation for initiation has also to consider.
                                                The Rays and the Initiations, pp. 29-31 

AAB: In light of the above instructions we realize that when people come together in a Master�s ashram they do not come there to get something for their own development, but so that they can go out into the world and serve. You do not get into an ashram until you are developed and serving.

When you are admitted into an ashram below the third initiation, you are occupied with receiving impressions about the Plan. Beyond the third initiation you are occupied with the Purpose. Two vital distinctions are to be occupied with the Plan and to be identified with the Purpose. Very few people are identified with the Purpose, as there can be no identification with the Purpose unless spiritual will is functioning. The Plan as it works out on the physical plane is the expression of Love.

An ashram basically is for those who have created at least one thread of the Antahkarana and who can work therefore with imaginative Purpose, because we cannot really know what Purpose is until we have taken the third initiation. We just dream about it, and then we work with the Plan as it affects our life, and that is the contribution of an ashram to the work to be done on the physical plane.

We have to learn to use intuition because the Master�s ashram is not on the mental plane. The plane on which we shall some day eventually work is not the mental plane. One of the things we have to learn to do in this new era is to get off the mental plane with all the knowledge and detail and technicalities that we have so painstakingly acquired and begin to develop that something that we call the intuition, which is the source of illumination. This illumination has to do with the ideas embodying the Purpose, which are the blueprints of the Plan.

Most of us are tremendously preoccupied with physical plane living, and yet that is not where the focus of our life should be. There is a world of meaning in which we should live, and when we set up a sufficient vortex of force we become so invocative that we invoke the intuition. �The intuition is to the world of meaning what the mind is to the physical plane of living.� Most of us impede our own effort by being so anxious to develop the intuition that the mind places the emphasis upon functioning and we become occupied with the academic side and so hinder the impress of the intuition.

[Reading further:]

Work from the point of all that is within the content of the group�s united life [from Rule Two].

This is not, as might appear, the effort to do the work for humanity as it is planned or desired by the group with which the initiate finds himself associated. The mode of working covers an earlier phase and one in which the accepted disciple learns much. First, he finds a group upon the physical plane whose ideals and plans for service conform to his idea of correct activity, and with this group he affiliates himself, works, learns, and in learning, suffers much. Later he finds his way into a Master's Ashram, where his effort is increasingly to learn to use the will in carrying out the Plan and to accommodate himself to the group methods and plans, working under the law of occult obedience for the welfare of humanity.

The initiate, however, works in neither of these ways, though he has acquired the habit of right contact with organizations in the three worlds and right cooperation with the Hierarchy. He works now under the inspiration of and identification with the life aspect � the united life aspect of his ray group and of all groups. This means that the significance of the involutionary life and the evolutionary life is fully understood by him. His service is invoked by the group or groups needing his help. His response is an occult evocation given in unison with the group of servers with which he is affiliated on the inner side. This is a very different thing to the mode of service generally understood.
                                                              The Rays and the Initiations, pp. 66-67

AAB: �He finds his way into a Master�s Ashram where his effort is increasingly to � accommodate himself to the group methods and plans.� That is, find out the Plan and then use the Will to cooperate with it. Not the self-will; that is eliminated when we are told that we have to accommodate ourselves to group methods and plans. We all know the Plan; the question is how much do we use the Will in making that Plan effective. It is not an easy thing to use the Will.

There are three aspects of will: spiritual or Monadic Will, Soul Will (sacrificial will) and self-will. A great many people tread the path of discipleship through self-will. The new thing that is coming out is this emphasis upon the Will. The Monad has contacted the personality; Shamballa has contacted humanity � in neither case reflecting through the Soul or the Hierarchy.

[Reading:]

Little by little, then, the focus and the orientation shift out of the astral life, from the emotional level of consciousness into the mental, and consequently into the reflection of the world of purpose, found in the three worlds. When that stage has been somewhat developed, then there follows, upon the Path of Discipleship and of preparation for initiation, an effort to grasp and understand the higher aspects of this mental process, and the will aspect of the egoic life begins to influence the disciple. The �petals of sacrifice� unfold and the sacred sacrificial aspect of life is revealed in its beauty, purity, simplicity and in its revolutionizing quality.
                                                                       The Rays and the Initiations, p. 31

AAB: With what do you identify yourself? With sacrifice? It should be identification with Purpose. If you really knew the Purpose it wouldn�t be sacrifice. Sacrifice comes from a word meaning to make whole, to make holy � not holy in the sense of being good. It is wholly, that which is concerned with the whole, the complete thing. Let us imagine that the life of the higher will, which covers the higher initiations, is entirely concerned with the Purpose, total wholeness, total completeness, what Patanjali calls �isolated unity.�

So we come to a consideration of three fields of approach: 1) personality life expression, 2) Soul life expression and 3) the field of Monadic expression. It is elementary that in the first field we are individualistic; in the second field we recognize the value of the group; and in the third field of Monadic expression it is the wholeness of thinking that matters. We have been perfecting the second aspect, but only because our eyes are focused on the third. It is the method of release of everything we have developed and held until there enters into us release or the making holy and whole, becoming identified with the Monadic aspect. We increase in stature to the fullness of the measure of the stature of Christ. The measure is high and wide and full, but it isn�t just size; it is also quality.

If we could tune in to the high Purpose of the Divine Will and then serve that Purpose, that would be creative activity. People are apt to think creativity is painting a picture or writing a poem. There were four great creative moments in the life of humanity:

1.      The Magna Charta, the first great declaration of the Four Freedoms.

2.      The declaration of the French Republic.

3.      The Declaration of Independence.

4.      The joint declaration of the Four Freedoms in the Atlantic Charter.

You have in those four great declarations the sounding forth on the physical plane of something that is creative � four great creative moments in the unfolding consciousness of humanity.

It has seemed to me that the approach is not that I lose my identity, but that I pool my identity with others, pool every resource that every individual has, if we are disciples. If we were initiates we would be pooling everything � Soul and personality; but being disciples we work with the Plan and not with the Purpose.

Somewhere the Tibetan, in speaking of the work of disciples, said something about how many disciples and aspirants can grasp the spiritual idea and work it into substance on the astral plane and even get some etheric matter adhered to it, but they can�t hang on long enough so that it can precipitate. People get tired and give up, and these abortive things hang around on etheric levels, but never get any further.

RK: Don�t you think it is a failure of the will?

P: Or of intelligent activity?

AAB: You may say that if you have will then you will not quit, but it is not the will that does the work. It might be intelligent activity and it might be an act of the will. The final cause is an act of the will that focuses through the brain and reaches to the base of the spine. The difficulty is that many are working with self-will, and that has to go. Then there is Soul Will. Most people do not distinguish between them. They are using a highly developed self-will. Above all is the Monadic Will, which is that dynamic purpose that cannot be frustrated.

JL: If we have self-will, Soul Will and spiritual will, what is there in the three that makes them all will? Dynamic impulse. Don�t we get right back to the question that will is always will? We all have dynamic impulses.

AAB: No, I wish we did. If I had dynamic impulses I would burst the world wide open. If we were dynamic enough nothing would stop us, because it is the purpose of being. We have selfish impulses. We are personally dynamic. Then you would have Soul dynamism, which is never unkind, and then Monadic dynamism when the Purpose of God would be the only thing you cared for. We all have dynamic energy; the trouble is the purpose back of it.

Monadic will is Purpose. I don�t pretend to know what it is. Soul Will is the will to love. Personal will is the will to have something. Thus we have the will to progress, the will to love and the will to have.

FB: The will to do instead of the will to have.

AAB: What we are doing is determined by the will to have.

FB: The First Ray is the ray of will or purpose.

AAB: Will or power, purpose, lies behind all the rays.

FB: So does love, so does activity.

AAB: The Tibetan has been dealing with the direct relationship between the Monad and the personality via the Antahkarana, exclusive of the Soul, just as we are contacting Shamballa force exclusive of the Hierarchy. I think therefore that we have to get clear in our minds what we are talking about. If we want to talk about Soul and personality fusion, then all right � the Soul is reflecting the lower aspect of the spiritual aspect into the mind. That is what we are dealing with in the first three degrees � the fusion of Soul and personality. But in the fourth degree, and in this group, new concepts are being given. That is, when fusion between the Soul and personality is attained and the Soul fades out, then the relation is between the Spiritual Triad and the personality, and finally between the Monad and the brain.

The Tibetan says that the new force from Shamballa was formerly stepped down via the Hierarchy. It is now coming through to humanity directly. The same is true of Monadic force, which was formerly stepped down by the Soul. Now it is coming in direct to the personality.

I have always remembered the phrase from Alexander�s In the Hours of Meditation. He asked how to know the Master, and the answer came in the hour of meditation that to know the Master was not to have seen his form but to have understood his will. That is knowing the Master. This does not mean a mental understanding, but rather to stand up to his will and let him work through you.

The thought of the Hierarchy is coming more and more into the consciousness of the masses. An article about world economy after the Armistice talked of a hierarchy of economists. That talk is laying the foundation for the externalization of the Hierarchy. I believe one of the functions of a group like this is that by having understood their will, having complied with the will and having brought our own vibration up as high as we can, we thus link the Hierarchy and humanity, and nothing can stop it.

C: That is what Christ said; he that doeth the will of the Father shall know of the doctrine.

[Reading:]

Only the disciple can act upon the mental level of consciousness at this point of endeavor. Once he does so, the die is cast. He either moves forward toward the door of light where the Master takes his hand and the Angel of the Presence becomes potent and active in a way that I may not describe to you, or he drops back temporarily into the life condition of the lower man; glamor and maya settle down anew upon him, and the Dweller on the Threshold inserts himself between the disciple and the light from the open door and renews activity. The disciple either awakens suddenly to a wider grasp of reality and a deeper understanding of the Plan and his part in it, or the �veils of earth� close over his head; the vision fades and he reverts into the life of an ordinary human being, probably for the period of the incarnation wherein the opportunity was offered to him.

Should he, however, go forward through that door, then (according to the initiation which becomes possible) will be the revelation and its attendant consequences. The revelation will not be the revelation of possibilities. It is a factual experience, resulting in the evocation of new powers and capacities and the recognition of new modes and fields of service. These powers are conditioned by past developments and the presence of these capacities, plus a freedom of movement �within the bounds of the Hierarchy� that lie far beyond anything that he may have dreamed, become his.
                                                       Discipleship in the New Age, Vol. I, pp. 92-93

Initiation might be defined at this point as the moment of crisis wherein the consciousness hovers on the very borderline of revelation.
                                                                                                       Ibid., pp. 91-92

AAB: The initiate stands in indecision on this borderline. We need to arrive at a definition of the point of crisis that is implied in this.

C: Does the crisis come accidentally or do we force it ourselves? How is the crisis going to be produced?

AAB: Nothing is accidental. It comes from circumstances, the conditions under which the disciple lives, and because the real disciple always forces the issue. So many students do not force the issue. The kingdom of heaven is taken by violence. The violence, the forcing of the issue, is lacking in so many cases.

The thing that has interested me in what the Tibetan is doing is that he has changed our conception about initiation, which was a very material conception. In all past teaching there were two outstanding notes � one laid emphasis on character building and the other described what a Master does to a disciple in order to make him an initiate. Actually a Master does nothing; he watches over the disciple as he goes through his difficulties. The disciple himself, the initiate himself, brings about the crisis because he is an initiate and a vortex of force. When a point of crisis is correctly utilized, then the initiate passes over the borderline, at which point so many stay back, and revelation is given to him.

Mind will be the active agent of the love aspect. Whatever sensitivity we have to the higher ideas of the Plan, the mind must immediately put them into action. The Will must assist it, but love will always fuse it and keep it alive.

The only difference between Christ and the previous great teachers, or the Buddha and the previous teachers, was that the emergency of the times called for a focusing of power, and they were the only people capable of receiving it. I think we are on the verge of seeing it again because the will aspect has to focus itself in something.

I want to call upon you all to use the will. You could be so much more effective than you are. How much time do you give every day to the constant steady drive of the thing that you do? Everything is spiritual, the whole of life. Do you really drive yourself in the helping of humanity at this time? Are you really living a sacrificial life, which is the life of the will? There is no sacrifice in the spiritual life, and yet it is the life of the sacrificial will, that driving spiritual will that will not let the personality stop for one minute.

When we think clearly and are galvanized by the will, then we can be used by the Hierarchy as a transmitting group to humanity.

It is the dynamic will, the sacrificial will, that relates us to Shamballa. It may have a destructive effect on our personal life, but it will make us a fulfiller of divine purpose. We recognize that our place is to be simply a transmitter of spiritual life. We let such a flood of life pour into our correspondence and our contacts with co-workers that never again will they be the same. We must give up all talk about cycles of light and dark and determine to live at a high point of tension for the rest of this incarnation and not permit ourselves to slump. What is a slump? This is when we have withdrawn our sacrificial will. Lastly, we must see that every Soul that contacts us goes away with their tension a little more tense, with their determination a little firmer, with their light a little greater because they have met us.